tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44664038785768375792018-02-22T03:22:05.541+13:00TimespannerTimespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.comBlogger1705125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-4084742930267535002017-08-04T02:56:00.001+12:002017-08-04T02:56:25.548+12:00When the "Queen of the Goths" won the first Avondale Cup
At the July 2017 meeting of the Whau Local Board, the Board’s members approved naming a new street in Avondale, just off Sandy Lane near Ash Street, Tamora Lane. This was chosen by the developer, Wilshire Group Limited, because it was the name of the first Avondale Cup winner, a mare, in 1890.
Tamora was foaled in 1883 at the NZ Stud Company’s grounds at Sylvia Park, her sire the champion Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-69167568677591878212017-08-04T02:53:00.000+12:002017-08-04T02:53:36.451+12:00Minding other people’s children — Samuel Albert Nelmes
It started with a phone call from someone who wanted to know where her great-grandfather Samuel Albert Nelmes had lived in Avondale, in the 1890s. I’ve had a number of such enquiries over the years; unless the person owned land here, usually from the time of the 1880s subdivisions on Rosebank and in the Roberton area, it can be next-to-impossible to determine where someone was within the old Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-18375662162004991512017-08-01T15:18:00.000+12:002017-08-01T15:18:03.210+12:00The Collector and the Gardener: Alexander Rose, and Fong Ming Quong
In Auckland in the 1890s, two men from different civilisations would cross each other’s path in the course of the process of customs and excise procedures at the port. One was the Auckland Collector of Customs, Alexander Rose. The other, a Chinese merchant and gardener named Fong Ming Quong (usually referred to, including on the birth certificate of his youngest child, as simply Ming Quong.) Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-74019254592017703762016-12-20T08:51:00.003+13:002016-12-20T08:51:53.062+13:00Avondale's Racecourse and the Second World War
Overlay of the camp areas, on 1940 aerial of the racecourse.
1940
September
1st Battalion, Auckland Regiment, have daily parades from their homes to the racecourse for training. Avondale (1st Field Regiment, NZA) one of three training centres in Auckland, the others being part of Ellerslie and Carlaw Park.
A group of young women called the Independent Younger Set assisted in the Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-78705215294469032602016-07-14T10:02:00.000+12:002016-07-14T10:03:54.659+12:00Return to the Orange
Above is how the Orange Coronation Hall looked back in 2006. Previous blog post here.
Yesterday -- this is the new Orange. Tony Smith of Burwood Orange Ltd contacted me in May this year, and invited me to take a look around what his company have done to the old Auckland landmark. With Tony, and another blogger from NZ Jazz, I was given a chance to see inside the building, and what the Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-51932941313312798462016-07-09T21:20:00.000+12:002016-07-09T21:20:51.632+12:00Once upon a time, there was a hill ...
Once upon a time, there was a hill in Hamilton. It was known to Ngati Wairere as Te Kopu Mania O Kirikiriroa (the smooth belly of Kirikiriroa. It was known for the fertility of its soil, and also used for observing the movements of the stars for cropping.
Many of the later settlers liked the Garden Place Hill, but businessmen in the area saw it as a nuisance. It divided the expanded Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-59774824571985477012016-07-09T20:46:00.005+12:002016-07-09T20:46:53.354+12:00Somewhere between the truth and otherwise ... Behind the name of John Douglas Stark
During the course of work I did recently for the Friends of Waikumete Cemetery, and towards the end of research into dozens of names linked with pre WWI and WWI-related burials at the cemetery, the name of Douglas Stark came up.
Looking into his story, I found that well-known historians, including Jock Phillips who took this image of a memorial in Kaiapoi said to have been modelled on Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-32384315770322536892016-05-29T03:45:00.000+12:002016-05-29T03:45:20.234+12:00Flipping over burgers
From NZ Herald 10 August 1940
Sometimes, history can be about really mundane things. Like – hamburgers.
Or more specifically – what was the first “hamburger bar” in New Zealand.By the looks of things, if you think it was Frisco’s at the junction of Great South and Manukau Roads, in the former Junction Hotel building, it isn’t correct. But, on a Facebook page where I have stated this, Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-21769229015249804722016-04-08T20:06:00.001+12:002016-04-08T20:06:06.364+12:00A blast from the heavens ...
When squally storms turn violently electric, we all know that lightning follows – and sometimes that flash from the sky can strike where we would least suspect.
On the Saturday afternoon of 18 June 1932 – that place was Avondale’s St Jude’s Church. In the midst of a particularly heavy thunderstorm in the western districts, where, according to a news report at the time, “several flashes Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-31937121679864574762016-03-27T11:54:00.002+13:002016-03-27T11:54:38.903+13:00The tales to tell of "Kernel Bell"
These days if I, as a townie Aucklander, say the phrase "Winterless North" to my Northland friends, they'll likely roll their eyes and give me that "Oh yeah?" look. Because yes, there is such a thing as a cold, wet, muddy winter in Northland.
The blame, if it could be called that, for the cliche still being used today seems to rest with one Col. Allen Bell (c.1860-1936), born in Leeston, Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-88216125210663732322016-02-06T09:56:00.000+13:002016-02-06T09:56:18.001+13:00The leaning (water) tower of Hawera
Reaching Hawera on a recent weekend trip with the committee of the NZ History Federation, during a petrol stop there, I looked around, and asked what the prominent landmark was, visible just along the road. When I was told it was the Hawera Water Tower -- I knew I wanted to take photos and find out more.
So, the next morning, before the sun started baking us alive again from 9 am down Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-79424406570769406902016-02-06T08:38:00.001+13:002016-02-06T08:38:45.983+13:00From Wellington to Auckland at speed - 1923
NEW MOTOR RECORD.
WELLINGTON TO AUCKLAND
TIME: 15 HOURS 25 MINUTES
JOURNEY THROUGH RAIN
A new motor-car speed record between Auckland and Wellington was established yesterday by Mr George L Campbell and Mr Leslie F Bedford. The car, a Durant Four, left Wellington at 3 am, and drew up outside the general post office at Auckland at 6.25 pm, after a trip of 15 hours 25 minutes, which is 42 Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-46607817514648990742015-12-25T15:16:00.001+13:002015-12-25T15:16:38.376+13:00Auckland's Anti-Eviction Committee, 1931
NZ Herald 13 October 1931
From out of the desperation of the Great Depression of the late 1920s to mid 1930s, the scarcity of relief work drove the Auckland Unemployed Workers Movement to form an “Anti-Eviction Committee” at a meeting first at the Trades Hall, then at St Matthews Hall, on 13 June 1931. A rent strike had been called, as a protest against the suspension of No. 5 scheme Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-3451314137640626452015-12-08T14:52:00.000+13:002015-12-08T14:52:10.616+13:00The McLean Motor-car Act 1898
This originated because William McLean, a Wellington businessman and member of Parliament, imported two tiller-steered Benz cars in February 1898. Although it was decided that the new technology, while having no category for excise, could still be levied at £75 ... McLean's lawyers weren't content that it would be legal to drive them on the highways without an act of parliament. The Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-57945305961692531992015-11-19T16:42:00.000+13:002015-11-19T16:42:09.419+13:00Auckland Old Folks Association Coronation Hall in Gundry Street, Newton.
What caught my eye was the bit about it being a coronation hall. I'm so used to such halls in the country being connected with monarchs back to Edward VII and George V -- this made me wonder.
Turns out, this Fletcher Construction-built, Heinrich "Henry" Kulka-designed building was part funded by money to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II. There can't be too many coronation halls Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-4904769815535152015-11-19T16:36:00.000+13:002015-11-19T16:36:05.415+13:00East Street Methodist Mission Hall
East Street, off Karangahape Road, was chopped up severely by the motorway development of the 1960s-1980s. But here is a survivor I came upon yesterday – wondering, as I do, what its history is.
Turns out that what is now the Congregational Church of Jesus started out as the East Street Methodist Mission Hall and Sunday school, built by Lye & Sons, to the design of Alexander Wiseman (Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-13035016277784814572015-11-19T16:30:00.001+13:002015-11-19T16:30:29.191+13:00Adventures in street naming ...
... or, things going a bit loopy in Avondale ...
The image is from c.1919, and is of the house that was at 1 Trent Street in Avondale, since removed for a 33 unit development.
Trent Street has always been a small street. It may even be Avondale's smallest. It started out as the end of Station Road (today the northern part of Blockhouse Bay Road) because it curved down towards what Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-78455625419260156052015-11-09T03:39:00.000+13:002015-11-24T18:01:24.764+13:00Apples to thoroughbreds – the Apple Farm of Waiouru Peninsula, East Tamaki
When I first came upon references to the Apple Farm of East Tamaki, I thought it was interesting but would be a considerably shorter story than it has turned out to be. Instead, it has ended up being about missionaries, land deals, surveyors-turned entrepreneurs, the misuse of trust funds, the craziness of the Auckland business economy in the mid 1880s – and apples.Updated (info on J C Cairns) Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-30170476535720117462015-11-06T20:43:00.001+13:002015-11-06T20:43:34.152+13:00Death at Ayr Street, 1958
(John Cardwell from the Timespanner page on Facebook did most of the research for the following, as well as provide the image of the house as it is today.)
Two lives intersected tragically at 24 Ayr Street, Parnell, one Friday in April 1958.
Grant Caldwell Lofley was born as one of a set of twins in 1933, but his sibling died soon after birth. His parents separated; he was in Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-85588247018360995812015-11-04T14:27:00.000+13:002015-11-04T14:27:39.075+13:00Death in Raymond Street: Peter William and Beatrice Mabel Clos, 1928
NZ Herald 27 January 1928
The news broke for Aucklanders in the pages of the NZ Herald on the morning of 27 January 1928: two bodies discovered the day before at 12 Raymond Street, in the otherwise peaceful seaside suburb of Pt Chevalier. Peter William Clos, 31, a builder’s labourer and former leading amateur boxer, and his wife Beatrice Mabel formerly Barnett (40) were found with a Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-70792195263551451852015-10-06T15:03:00.000+13:002015-11-07T16:58:32.586+13:00Auckland's theatre on the Haymarket -- His Majesty's Theatre and Arcade (1902-1987)
His Majesty's Arcade in Queen Street, 1970s. 435-B5-239, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries.
Updated/edited: 24 October 2015
A number of vanished landmarks in Auckland’s history come up as examples of what we have lost over time. Many, with the mere mention, still raise passions. One of these is Queen Street’s His Majesty’s Theatre and Arcade (1902-1987).
The Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-45846308978680761942015-04-22T07:53:00.003+12:002015-04-22T07:53:47.550+12:00Guest Post: Our Role Model, Tom Skeates
It is with great pleasure that I republish (by kind courtesy) author Jacqui Knight's article on Tom Skeates, the West Auckland monarch butterfly enthusiast. Originally published in Issue 12 of Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand published by the Moths and Butterflies of NZ Trust.
Colour images taken from this blog. Historic images from Dick Scott's Fire on the Clay, supplied by Jacqui KnightTimespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-26884063686222358572015-04-08T13:30:00.006+12:002015-04-08T13:30:52.561+12:00Excessive Dancing a peril at Onehunga, 1875(From Auckland Star, 9 April 1875)
Death at Onehunga from Excessive Dancing
There is no doubt but that the penalties which follow almost every kind of pleasure proceed from the immoderate use of such pleasure, and frequently lead to fatal results, and an inordinate love of dancing is no exception to the universal rule as the death of the young lady, Miss Nixon, of Onehunga, testifies, and which Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-37093438991476181522014-09-20T14:23:00.000+12:002017-05-26T21:22:01.643+12:00Beside Te Wai Ariki: from the Mason's Hotel to the Hotel Cargen
Rev John Kinder drawing of Eden Crescent looking west. Old St Pauls on the horizon, part of the Royal Hotel complex centre-right. 4-1208, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries
On spotting some early photos of Eden Crescent via the Te Papa Museum collection recently, I felt the urge to look into the story of the second Royal Hotel. Said story turned out to be somewhat more Timespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4466403878576837579.post-67431687275709339512014-09-04T23:59:00.000+12:002014-09-04T23:59:17.807+12:00Mr Fritzschner's baby biplane dreams
Auckland Weekly News 31 August 1911, AWNS-19110831-16-3, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries.
Paul Fritzschner, eighteen-year-old son of Mr
P. Fritzschner, a settler living on the main county road, Pahiatua has,
during his spare moments in the past eighteen months, been working
unaided on an aeroplane. A Pahiatua Herald representative
was last week shown the aeroplaneTimespannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11990716041045862669noreply@blogger.com3